The greatest NFL WR ever and arguably the greatest NFL RB ever both came from HBCUs. Remember, Jerry Rice was Miss Valley State. There IS history there.
Illinois Football Recruiting Thread
- Status
Incredible stuff! Cliff Alexander crawled so he could walk.
Deion Sanders is in the news on a weekly basis and also whenever he wants to, plus he seems to be in quite a few Aflac commercials! Don't worry about any talented kid going to Jackson St.! He'll get "Prime Time" coaching and the combine seems to adjust for any unanswered questions. Do you see how often he has former NFL greats stop by his practices and facilities?!
TwoElevenEastDaniel
- Cochrane's-Orchid-Tonic
And Brittany Renner.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
The three greatest football players from Mississippi are Jerry Rice, Walter Payton and Brett Favre. Ole Miss and Mississippi State offered none of them.
How do you know our PR department hasn't provided it? Maybe the kids are doing what I would do which is try to ignore the new logo and hope it goes away.
Epsilon
M tipping over
- Pdx
Yikes. That’s still a long list. And a little scary if you see these as more important needs right now than QB. Is the transfer from Syracuse at least considered ‘average’?
They aren't gonna get another QB after they took DeVito. He has the arm talent yes. He will be the clear cut starter going into camp.
Joel Goodson
- ties will be resolved
Zero St. Loo kids. Yeah, I know East St. Louis was off the table, but still. Drinkwitz is drinking our milkshake.
His stated goal of raising the profile of HBCU athletics is pretty G D ambitious. If he’s successful, on a cultural level, that would be bigger than merely running an NFL team.
Give BB time. We'll get there and start. Key is to win Illinois first and develop the road grader pipeline in Suburbs of Chicago and Wisconsin where he heavily recruited before and still has good relationships. Has to build those relationships in STL still and IL south of 70.
I have been skeptical of QB play for awhile but I am quite excited about what BB and crew are doing since they arrived. BB was churning out recruiting classes like this in the 30s-40s range consistently during his time at Wisconsin. This will be the most consistent recruiting we have had since the Zook years. Only difference is BB can actually coach and develop players routinely.
Don't think he had a class inside the top 25 while at Wisconsin. Wouldn't expect one here either. He got results at Wisconsin with classes in the 35-40 range.
Deion currently has cameras following him around down there filming a reality type show for for Barstool. The guy who is filming/producing it tweeted out that cameras were rolling every day during this whole ordeal. Gonna be fascinating to watch.
illini80
- Forgottonia
This. Give this some time and we will be just fine. My prediction is in 5 years there will be lots of complaining about us only winning 7-8 games.
While true, Wisconsin doesn't have the fertile recruiting radius that UI does. Not saying BB will load classes with 4*, but we located much more centrally to CHI/STL/IND. If you're a believer that directionally distance matters in recruiting (I am), then BB should have more quality at-bats given our location
Just going off team rankings, but Zook/IL routinely had higher ranked recruiting classes than BB/Wisconsin during the years they overlapped. Yep Zook could lure players in but that was about it.
Going off when he got hired here and also this offseason, looks like BB is adding quality transfers as well. Recruiting 2.0 with the free transfer year
BZuppke
- Plainfield
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Transfers are a major part of recruiting going forward, even for us despite my assumption that we’ll be more HS focused than some others in the coming years.
Bielema & Co have done okay with talent acquisition so far. Not knocking anything out of the ballpark, but they’re giving themselves a chance.
Every increment of better talent would be that much more helpful though. Playmakers make plays.
But of course what we most want to be is big, old, deep, and experienced along both lines. We will not be that in 2022, so we’re entering a bit of process-trusting territory here, but this staff showed me that they value maintaining a culture where the games matter and snaps are earned by merit, so I remain hopeful that we’re not going to let go of the rope.
skyIdub
Winged Warrior
I'm mostly a FB lurker here and it is entirely a perception thing on my part, but it just feels like a similar type of program arc to BU's basketball program construction. I don't know if it is intentional or partially directed by JDubs....but it just has that feeling. Lumps for a few years (lets be honest...football rebuild much more complex/difficult)....then consistent recruiting wins with tangible gains on the field each year?
I'd be curious to hear BB's program vision/pitch to JW vs. JW's pitch to BB? They were obviously simpatico, but after the flashy splash hire in Lovie....the BB hire was a tenuous character hire that so far has turned out to be almost a polar opposite of the character worries some had.
Maybe not BB's "dream job", but the feel of "if you build it they will come"....kind of home.
Random thoughs.....I'll crawl back to my .gif hole now....
I'd be curious to hear BB's program vision/pitch to JW vs. JW's pitch to BB? They were obviously simpatico, but after the flashy splash hire in Lovie....the BB hire was a tenuous character hire that so far has turned out to be almost a polar opposite of the character worries some had.
Maybe not BB's "dream job", but the feel of "if you build it they will come"....kind of home.
Random thoughs.....I'll crawl back to my .gif hole now....
thumbs up for Jack HandeyI'm mostly a FB lurker here and it is entirely a perception thing on my part, but it just feels like a similar type of program arc to BU's basketball program construction. I don't know if it is intentional or partially directed by JDubs....but it just has that feeling. Lumps for a few years (lets be honest...football rebuild much more complex/difficult)....then consistent recruiting wins with tangible gains on the field each year?
I'd be curious to hear BB's program vision/pitch to JW vs. JW's pitch to BB? They were obviously simpatico, but after the flashy splash hire in Lovie....the BB hire was a tenuous character hire that so far has turned out to be almost a polar opposite of the character worries some had.
Maybe not BB's "dream job", but the feel of "if you build it they will come"....kind of home.
Random thoughs.....I'll crawl back to my .gif hole now....
redwingillini11
White and Sixth
- North Aurora
I think Bret did a good job with this class. This should be a real solid class, and it’s huge already the strides we are making in recruiting in Illinois and Wisconsin. But I hope this is the last class in a long time that we don’t have any 4 stars. If we can’t do that, we I’ll never challenge the top tier of the division. We can’t be the only team in the conference without a blue chip recruit.
DeonThomas
- South Carolina
Perhaps the most optimistic & hopeful comment I've ever seen/read pertaining to Illini football ---- in my lifetime.
While it would be nice to get some 4-stars, the last time we were consistently getting blue chip recruits, we went: 9-4, 5-7, 3-9, 7-6, 7-6. While that's a good stretch for five years considering what's happened the last decade, that's pretty rough overall for how much talent was here. I just want hardworking kids and good coaches that can get us competing for the West title. We already had that in BB's first year, so I look forward to more of that.
Illiniaaron
- Geneseo, IL
I post this at least once a year, but me want
on the helmet. I guy can dream, can't he?- Status